Monday, November 30, 2009

Manilow Water will flow at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino when Barry Manilow moves his show to the Vegas Strip on March 5th.

We told you back in September that the entertainer who markets his own brand of H2O was ending his longterm run at the Las Vegas Hilton on December 30th and resettling at the Paris' Le Theatre Des Arts, possibly as early as Valentines Day. The two-year Paris deal is reportedly for better money and a lighter schedule (Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with occasional Sunday shows).

Tickets go on sale tomorrow for shows through July 18th but are already on sale here for Manilow Fan Club members. Those tickets are priced at $181-$299, plus $16 convenience fees for 7:30 p.m. shows. Front row tickets for shows starting March 6 are open to fan bidding for what the web site calls “fair” prices at FrontRowManilow.com. Front row seats with a pre-show champagne reception, meet and greet and photo with Manilow, and an autographed show program can be bought at ManilowParis.com.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Another wrinkle has been added to the complicated image of late Las Vegas entertainer Danny Gans with the report this morning that the pharmacy he co-owned marketed a male erection pill and advertised it in “crude terms… promising men in obscene terms on a Web site that they could perform ("F") “like a porn star.”

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Scott Silber, Gans’ partner in Green Valley Drugs of Henderson, Nevada, combined Valium and Valium and Viagra into a single pill and called it Vegas Mixx. The pill was advertised on a website in 2007 with “with the promise that the combination would mellow the mind, relax the muscle that causes ejaculation and provide a lasting erection.

“The Vegas Mixx Web site — aimed at guys who come to Vegas for a fling — used crude terms: ‘Vegas Mixx... makes you rock hard, and keeps you that way. Enjoy the ride.’”

The article by Marshall Allen mentions the Danny Gans connection in the fourth paragraph:“Silber owned the pharmacy with entertainer Danny Gans, who was known for his squeaky-clean Christian image and died May 1 of a prescription narcotics overdose.

“Gans was not aware of Vegas Mixx, Silber said. ‘As you could probably guess, he would not have approved,’ he said.”

LEILA NAVIDI

According to the Sun article, Vegas Mixx idea was a failure and the website was taken down a month ago. Green Valley Drugs, however, could be haunted by the scheme.

“…Silber could face bigger troubles. Green Valley Drugs is a compounding pharmacy — meaning it can combine unique mixes of drugs, based on a doctor’s prescription — but may have been operating outside the bounds of its license. That could lead to investigations by the Nevada State Pharmacy Board and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Danny Gans was 52, with a reputation as an athletic, clean-living evangelical Christian when he died unexpectedly on May 1st of an overdose of hydromorphone, a drug known commercially as Dilaudid and on the streets as “drugstore heroin.”

In the days following Gans’ death, his friends and family expressed amazement that he had been involved with drugs in any way. His ownership in the Green Valley Drugs was revealed in August. Gans’ partners insisted the musical impressionist did not use the place as his own dispensary.

Friday, November 27, 2009

A few days after we brought you the playlist for the Disneyland's Main Street USA Christmas music loop, A CD arrived in the Tabloid Baby mailbox containing Lewis Bailey's latest Christmas mixtape. The world-renowned videographer, photojournalist and homebricker from Bailey Mountain, Georgia, is also Tabloid Baby's country music expert, so we were more than a bit surprised to find barely a country song among the lot-- unless you count Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree by Bailey cousin Brenda Mae Tarpley-- but settled in for a long car ride as we were transported back to the days we'd pick up the Christmas compilation albums at the Firestone Tire store.

The list of Lewis' Yuletide selections follows. Now find the songs!

Sleighride Leroy Anderson

Run Run Rudolph Chuck BerryNo Place Like Home for The Holidays Perry ComoIt's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas Perry Como & The Fontane Sisters & The Mitchell Ayres OrchestraChristmas Island The Fontane SistersWhite Christmas Bing CrosbySleighride The Andrew SistersJingle Bell Rock Bobby HelmSanta Claus Is Back in TownElvis PresleyRockin' Around The Christmas TreeBrenda LeePlease Come Home for Christmas Charles BrownBlue Christmas Elvis Presley

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

On the eve of their first Thanksgiving without their father, Danny Gans' three teenage children have come forward nearly seven months after their father's death, in an interview to promote his new posthumous autobiography, The Voices In My Head, and to deny their father was addicted to drugs.

The heartbreaking talk with teenagers Andrew, Amy and Emily took place in a hotel room with a reporter from Las Vegas television station KTNV, focused on Gan's untimely death on may 1st from an overdose of the painkiller hydromorphone, known as Dilaudid and on the streets ad "drug store heroin."

The Gans kids insist their father was not addicted to painkillers at the time of his death, but despite earlier denials from the musical impressionist's friends and colleagues, they do confirm that he had been prescribed drugs to deal with pain from various injuries and surgeries.

"He didn't like being on the pain medication because he didn't like the way it made him feel," said Andrew. "So he'd go onstage sometimes, he'd be in so much pain, he'd have to go offstage during a change and get sick because he was in that much pain and he didn't like taking the medicine."

Daughter Amy added: "Because of the fact that I knew Danny-- he was my Dad-- sometimes he would go without the medication. And I can't, I can't believe people would just say that just to say it. Where's the truth behind it?"

In the latest interview, Amy also said she was sad that her father will not be around to give her and her sister away in marriage.

The family has since moved back to California. Emily has started high school. Emily is checking out colleges. Andrew, who, like his father, had a potential baseball career ended by injury, has taken up acting.

Once again, their mother Julie, Gans' widow, who discovered his body and called 911, did not participate in the interview.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Las Vegas Sun website is carrying a long, serious profile of Carrot Top, whom writer John Katsilometes takes pains to refer to by his given name, Scott Thompson, a member of the Las Vegas Strip Laugh Pack. The article is an appreciation and a keeper for all comedy fans, and the accompanying photo places Carrot Top squarely in the tradition of underappreciated comic talents, in the manner of the Clash using London Calling to stake its lineage to Elvis.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

"This is only a preview of our film about Chris Montez-- and it was put together for a convention of Beatles fans..."

Director Burt Kearns' teasing introduction to the preview of El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story was more than fulfilled last night as the Frozen Pictures film proved to be a hit at the Paso Robles Digital Film Festival. The screening at the La Quinta Hotel attracted a crowd of filmmakers, actors and musicians, who cheered the music as well as the intriguing and surprising story of Montez's experience headlining a tour of England with the Beatles as his opening act-- the very month Beatlemania broke out in the UK.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The town of Paso Robles California is rumbling with the power of rock 'n' roll as the Paso Robles Digital Film Festival rolled on this afternoon with a concert at the Silvester Winery featuring Chris Montez, Gary Busey, Diamond Dave Somerville and Sonny Curtis.

Yes, that Gary Busey, who will be at the screening of his Oscar-nominated turn in The Buddy Holly Story, followed by an exclusive preview of The Chris Montez Story doco from our pals at Frozen Pictures. The line-up was also a tribute marking the deaths of Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper fifty years ago: Montez was Valens' heir apparent, Busey played Holly and Somerville displayed a personality as big as the Bopper's).

The Paso Robles festival (in the town where they made the movie Sideways), is in its second year and has already won a reputation as a rollicking and dead-serious gathering of hard-living heavy-hitters from film and music, with screenings, concerts, receptions and panel discussions, with a special emphasis on music, digital filmmaking and children’s rights issues.

While Clint Eastwood was on hand last year, this weekend's lineup includes Luke Perry, Gary Busey, Kathleen Quinlan and Ken Kragen (executive producer of “We Are the World”), among others.

Busey, of course, was a star of Frozen Pictures' 2006 feature film comedy, Cloud 9, written and produced by Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns along with their pal, Academy Award®-winning (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) producer Albert S. Ruddy.

The festival runs tomorrow through Tuesday at various locations throughout Paso Robles. For more information, call 323-850-8919 or visit the festival website.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Everybody's making a big deal about the Newsweek cover that shows Sarah Palin tarted up in running gear in a photo that was intended for use only in Runner's World magazine. Sarah's throwing around the word "sexist," just as she's tossing around "pornography" regarding her granddaughter's father Levi Johnston's spread in Playgirl.

So why has there been no mention of the rest of the Runner's World photos themselves, which seem to display the classic "cameltoe" phenomenon-- the outline of the labia majora through her tight-fitting running garb?

Can Sarah Palin be so naive after her vice presidential campaign? Frankly, we're offended and a little disappointed that she'd pose in such provocative positions while wearing such an outfit. What constituency is she targeting here? Not a bad match for Levi's layout, though.

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DANNY GANS

Click the photo for our complete coverage of the death and legacy of the Las Vegas superstar

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"Sad, funny, undeniably authentic, Tabloid Baby tells the tale of what befell too much of mainstream television news over the past couple of decades as the bad drove out the good."
--Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes

"Burt was there for the birthing of tabloid, he became the heart of the genre, and now he's written the bible."
--Maury Povich

"Dear Burt: While you always had quite a flair for the dramatic, you never had much regard for the truth... Apparently you can't be bothered to read anything carefully. Maybe that is why you, like O'Reilly, make half your crap up.
Glad to hear you finally got sober." -- Barry Nolan, 04.12.08